As the year 2020 came to a close, Ali Wazir, a member of the National Assembly from South Waziristan, was arrested on the request of Sindh Police on December 16 while he was travelling to Peshawar to join a ceremony in the memory of Army Public School Children martyred by the Taliban in an attack 2014. Wazir was falsely accused, along with MoshinDawar, another Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) Leader and National Assembly member from Waziristan, of the trumped up charges of hate speech, conspiracy and treason.
Ali Wazir was arrested on Islamabad-Peshawar Motorway and then transferred to Karachi and presented before the Anti-Terrorist Court. A number of leading politicians condemned his arrest including Pakistan Muslim League (PMLN) vice president Maryam Nawaz and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, whose party is in power in Sindh Province. Many human rights activists expressed their concern over the humiliating treatment of an elected representative of people. There weren’t any mass demonstrations from the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement for the release of Ali Wazir, although the PTM kept on holding major public gatherings in Waziristan and areas of former FATA. It was even more shocking for many when the leadership of PTM held a press conference in the national press club of Islamabad demanding the release of another PTM detainee (recently released on bail), but there was no mention of Ali Wazir in the main banner behind the stage. Many wonder what is stopping PTM from even mentioning Ali Wazir’s name, as he is the most popular leader of the movement and one of the two members of National Assembly associated with PTM , especially when the other MNA was speaking to the press conference who also is named in the same police report.
Wazir’s bail application was submitted the day after. The courts hearings were transferred to Karachi Clifton Jail. The judge remarked on the inadequate evidence presented by the police against Ali Wazir and warned authorities to come up with solid material evidences. The court demanded the manuscript of the alleged “controversial” speech. The judge said further that a case of treason could not be registered against Wazir without the approval of the Sindh cabinet.
There is a law that no speech made by an elected member of the assembly can be submitted in court without the prior approval of the house’s cabinet. In this case, the police presented the speech record in court, but the approval was dated back in 2019. Wazir, however, was charged for a speech he made on December 6, 2020 at a PTM rally in Karachi. The court ordered acopy of the approved speech manuscript.
Acccording to the Express Tribune,
The Sindh cabinet had given the approval to register a case against MNA Ali Wazir, an anti-terrorism court (ATC) was informed on Friday during the hearing of a case pertaining to provocative speech. The minutes of the meeting stated that when the matter was referred to the prosecutor general, he had suggested that the cabinet give approval to lodge the case. Besides, a forensic report submitted to the court concluded that visual footage of Wazir’s address of December 6 was real. However, the Investigation Officer stated, the laboratory that issued the report said it couldn’t test the authenticity of the audio in the video as it did not have software needed for the purpose. Following that, the court sought arguments from Wazir’s counsel and adjourned the hearing till February 3.
While the PPP Chairman is condemning the arrest, his party’s cabinet paved the way for charging Ali Wazir. This tears apart the so-called progressiveness of PPP, which is trading Ali Wazir for petty benefits and concessions from the state.
Meanwhile the courts of Bannu district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province wrote to the Sindh government that Wazir is wanted in other cases in theBannu court, and if he gets bail from Karachi, he’ll be sent to Bannu. More than half of this Parliament’s tenure has passed, but Ali Wazir is continuously being dragged into fabricated cases. But he is following the footsteps of Bolsheviks deputies who used their position in the Tsarist Duma to expose the system and act as voices of the oppressed.
No amount of false charges, imprisonments, intimidations and betrayals can break the resolve of Ali Wazir, for he stands not only for the oppressed masses of Waziristan, but also for the working classes, youth and women of the entire country and beyond.
Courtesy Asian Marxist Review
